Embroidery is a fun, innovative way to add colors and design to your piece. It is currently back in trend along with floral patterns. Embroidery is considered a very fine type of art as it takes lots of skill and delicate handwork to make beautiful and complex pieces. It is very popular in couture and can be used to make amazing pieces.

Currently, at the Bowers Museum located in Santa Ana, designer Guo Pei’s pieces are being exhibited.  Guo Pei’s works are made with very fine gold and silver threads embroidered to make stunning pieces. She uses traditional Chinese craftsmanship but adds in contemporary innovation and Western styles to make it more modern. Her skill in embroidery is very high and she has a team of approximately 500 people to help her create her pieces. The amount of skill needed to embroider with gold thread is on a godly level that experts try very hard to achieve.

Basic embroidery, however, isn’t to difficult for anyone to master. Starting from the basics embroidery with normal cotton thread is not too difficult. You can start with a simple running stitch and slowly learn the different basic stitches. After practicing for a little bit you can move on and try to do more complex stitches like the chain stitch or the blanket stitch. The more stitches you learn, the more textures and designs you can create.

Embroidery is a very ancient art and there is evidence of the very first pieces being from 30,000 BC. It was sometimes used to record important events, similar to how the Egyptians recorded with hieroglyphics. Embroidery was also used to make designs or symbols that were believed to be lucky or special. Now embroidery is used more to add a personal touch or to show individuality. People can go to shops that specialize in embroidery and get their name or something of importance to them embroidered on their clothing.

Overall embroidery is a very beautiful ancient art requiring skill, yet at the same time, it can be an easy simple project for adding a personal touch. Embroidery is something very difficult to do. However, it is definitely a very useful skill that can be used creatively to express yourself and make special pieces. Although it takes quite a bit of commitment and time I can promise you won’t regret it. Also, I personally recommend trying it at least once because it is a lot of fun and it is really cool to design something yourself.